With North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper declaring the innocence of the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting an exotic dancer at a March 2006 team party, itâ€™s not too soon to consider the way journalists, columnists, and editorialists handled the high-profile case.

What the coverage of the Duke lacrosse case says about American journalism isnâ€™t particularly appetizing. For the most part, the mainstream media joined in a ratings-driven rush to judgment, presuming guilt on the part of the Duke Three.

Too many news organizations, from the Durham Herald-Sun to CNN’s Headline News, were eager to embrace a narrative of white privilege (entitled lacrosse players, the “almost perfect offenders” in the words of leftish Duke associate professor Wahneema Lubiano, assaulting a single black mother and student), even as the prosecution case began crumbling within days of the initial accusation.

The continuing national interest in the story, as I noted in June 2006, made sense because the Duke lacrosse case raised â€œsubmerged questions of race, class disparity, campus cultural and sexual mores, and the workings of our criminal justice system.”

But those issues, while intriguing, should never have been overwhelmed the underlying, and simple, question: did prosecutor Mike Nifong have a credible rape case against the three Duke players—David Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty—and why did he pursue their prosecution when DNA evidence of their guilt did not materialize?

At the same time, there were a small number of journalists who â€œgot it right,â€ largely because they focused on the facts of the case, not on the surrounding political and racial theatrics. Among them were the late Ed Bradley of CBS and â€œ60 Minutes,â€ history professor and blogger K.C. Johnson (whose Durham-in-Wonderland site offered detailed coverage), MSNBCâ€™s Dan Abrams, Peter Applebome of the New York Times, and National Journal senior writer and columnist Stuart Taylor, Jr.

Who got it wrong?

Thereâ€™s a long list of journalists and commentators who too easily accepted prosecutor Mike Nifongâ€™s framing of the case and clung to the notion of the Duke players as villains and the accuser as victim. As David Broder of the Washington Postnoted, “… reporters and commentators who accepted the allegations as if they were facts and held those young men out for ridicule and abuse have a lot to answer for.”

To their credit, some who initially accepted the prosecution narrative, like columnist Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post and Fox News contributor Susan Estrich, admitted they had been misled and argued, in the words of Marcus that â€œthe more evidence that has emerged in the case, the more it appears that there is way more than reasonable doubt that the three accused committed rape.”

Perhaps the most biased â€œcoverageâ€ of the case came from Headline Newsâ€™ Nancy Grace (“I’m so glad they didn’t miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like gang rape.â€), although Grace is one of the new cable news network celebrity hosts who are performers, not journalists.

Some of the more distorted coverage came from mainstream outlets, however. Newsweek ran a cover story in its May 1st issue (available in late April) entitled “Sex, Lies & Duke,” that included mug shots of the then two indicted players Finnerty and Seligmann and trumpeted: “Inside the mystery that has roiled a campus and riveted the country.” While Newsweek softened its coverage as the case collapsed under the weight of the facts, running a story in June 2006 sharply questioning Nifong’s prosecution, to date there has been no apology for the misleading cover.

Two of the Timesâ€™ sports columnists, Harvey Araton and Selena Roberts, hammered away at the Duke lacrosse team, with Araton criticizing the Duke womenâ€™s lacrosse team for wearing wrist-bands in support of the accused players and Roberts wrongly claiming that the Duke players had refused to cooperate with the police.

While editorial page columnists David Brooks and Nicholas Kristof did write calling for a fairness in the Duke case, reporter Duff Wilson filed a front-page story on August 25, 2006 that concluded:

By disclosing pieces of evidence favorable to the defendants, the defense has created an image of a case heading for the rocks. But an examination of the entire 1,850 pages of evidence gathered by the prosecution in the four months after the accusation yields a more ambiguous picture. It shows that while there are big weaknesses in Mr. Nifong’s case, there is also a body of evidence to support his decision to take the matter to a jury.

Those journalists closely following the Duke case were highly critical of the Wilson story; as Kurt Anderson wrote shortly afterwords:

…In a single dismissive boilerplate sentence, the piece attributes all criticism of the prosecution to defense lawyers, Duke alumni, and obsessive bloggers. What about Brooks, Kristof, and just about every other major national and local journalist and legal expert whoâ€™s looked closely at the case? Forget them. Thus the Timesâ€™ front-page news-hole takeaway: It isnâ€™t a witch hunt, Nifongâ€™s not so bad, these arenâ€™t the Scottsboro Boys, the accuser may well have been raped, these Duke guys might have done it, the case deserves to go to trial.

K.C. Johnson’s criticism of the Wilson story has focused on the “body of evidence” argument; Johnson says he looked at the same 1,850 pages and concluded there were no grounds for prosecution. He further notes that in Roy Cooper’s exoneration of the Duke players the Attorney General stated “no credible evidence” ever existed to back the accuser’s claims, which, in Johnson’s words “gives the lie to the claim in Wilson’s article.”

Lessons learned?

What can journalists learn from the coverage of the Duke case?

Some of the mistakes, especially in the early stages of coverage, were quite natural ones to make. Like all of us, journalists start with assumptions about the present that are largely based on the past.

Alpha male jock culture (as I wrote after the rape allegations first surfaced) is “notorious for incidents of misogyny and violence against women ( vide scandals at Nebraska, Colorado, St. John’s).” Prosecutor Nifong seemed confident that a rape had occured. It was easy, as Ruth Marcus wrote “… to imagine that a bunch of rowdy, hard-drinking players could have crossed the line from watching a paid dancer to sexually assaulting her.”

Imagining, however, is different than concluding. No matter how unsavory or boorish the scene at that Duke lacrosse team party may have been, it proved nothing about the accuser’s claims. That point was lost as many print and broadcast journalists focused on the ugly details of the party and a vile e-mail sent by one of the players afterwords as if they somehow corroborated the prosecution story.

Only forensic evidence and/or credible witness testimony could prove whether a rape had occurred or not. Gaping holes in the case against the lacrosse players surfaced early on. Skepticism seemed to be in order when the DNA tests showed no matches with any of the Duke players on April 10. When the grand jury indicted Seligmann and Finnerty a week later on rape and other charges and Seligmann’s attorney offered a fairly convincing alibi for his client, even more doubts were raised about the accuser’s credibility.

Would Nifong have pursued the Duke players if he had confronted critical questioning from more reporters in the early stages of the investigation? If newspaper columnists and cable news personalities hadn’t cast the story as a morality tale of rich white preppies exploiting a vulnerable black woman, would Nifong have felt less emboldened to indict the Duke Three?

Had America’s news organizations approached the Duke case with fewer preconceptions and more attention to basic reporting and the sort of journalistic digging done by Abrams, Taylor and Johnson, it’s possible the travesty of the last year could have been avoided. Or perhaps not, but at least there would be a lot less embarrassment in American newsrooms today.

NOTE: For readers interested in assessing my commentary on the Duke lacrosse case over time, please see the following:

6 users commented in " Journalists and the Duke lacrosse case "

The abuse of these men by the media, academia, various groups and organizations is egregious. I find it equally as nasty to contemplate the wealth of articles flowing from the same sources decrying the abuse that they, themselves, are guilty of. I hope that the Duke players a)find a meaningful and positive future that is free of this crap that has been heaped upon them and b) that they sue every single individual or group that maligned them that they possibly can. They should make so much money off of it that they never have to work in their lives. The system is corrupt. The Political system is corrupt, the Judicial system is rife with prosecutorial misconduct and there are innocent people in prison all over our land, we have secret prisons and our leaders aren’t accountable, and the media is a joke and can not be trusted with the truth or with the reputations of people it focuses on. It repeatedly abdicates its responsibility to please its advertizers and its political benefactors. Pathetic and sad.

margaret said,

in April 17th, 2007 at 11:26 am

Please don’t forget the greatest offender, RITA CROSBY. She is a disgrace along with Nancy Grace and Wendy Murphy!

Ilia said,

in April 17th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

Kudos to journalists and bloggers who help to debunk the case!
But I am confused – it is exactly the Newsweek article “Sex, lies and Duke”, which convinced me that the case against the players was most probably a fraud. Reread the article and, yup, it is the article that basically did for me.

What was distorted exactly? And if something was wrong in Newsweek, I am sure, after reading that article, nobody would think that Nifong’s case was based on the facts, not false assumptions.

jeffersonflanders said,

in April 17th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

Responding to Ilia,

I would agree that the May 1st Newsweek article included Reade Seligmann’s alibi and other inconsistencies in Nifong’s case. But the cover, with the two players’ mug shots and the headline “Sex, lies and Duke” left the impression that Seligmann and Finnerty were somehow linked to “sex” and “lies”—when it was already clear that the case was weak. Would the editors of Newsweek have wanted their family members photos published on the front cover in similar circumstances (the old New York Times’ Abe Rosenthal Test)? I think not.

Jefferson Flanders

Rhonda Fleming said,

in April 9th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

~LieStoppers~

Why have they closed their boards? Why call themselves LieStoppers if they practice censorship to prevent outing TRUTHS?!

Another example of media gone yellow. Quash “Freedom Of Speech” but pornography and sensationalism is the motive to attract readers and attention.

No better than what Nifong, corrupt politicians, law enforcement, and Durham did to the LAX team. I find it hypocritical to send people to the “corn field” for speaking up and about injustices, crimes against humanity, civil and basic human rights, and many other true pathetic examples of the evils of citizens and government. A site I once had respect for and joined to support the team, as my brother Allen Jackson Croft Jr was found dead under a train trestle May 11, 2005, and has YET to be INVESTIGATED, much less prosecuted! My family is not alone with unanswered questions about our loved ones murders, and have waited needlessly far too long! Lies truly do kill, and until we are told facts and truths suffer beyond comprehension. Wherein lies our rights to live under any moral and social code? What has become of our country and world?

We are working with Parent’s Of Murdered Children to help us to solve my brother’s murder, when the city of Durham NC, considers it closed!
Nifong neglected his murder investigation for the LAX case, along with Janet Araboa, and our families have NOT given up our quest for JUSTICE!
The MASSIVE CORRUPTION by the city of Durham, and the state of NC SHALL BE EXPOSED!
The LaCrosse case has served as a smokescreen for too many years, and I implore all who reads this to contact the Governor, Bev Perdue, and request a Federal Investigation into my brother, Allen Jackson Croft Jr’s murder. The form is located here. http://www.governor.state.nc.us/eTownhall/qa.aspx

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